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FTX Leads $150 Million Fundraise of African Fintech, Bitcoin Unicorn App Chipper
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TradingView completes new funding round with $3B valuation
TradingView, the price charting platform used as a reference for price movements of cryptocurrencies and other assets, has secured $298 million in a funding round to attain a $3-billion valuation.
Led by TradingView’s new investor, Tiger Global, the funding follows a strong growth of the platform’s user base, mostly retail investors, during the pandemic. According to the announcement, TradingView experienced a 400% increase in new accounts and a 237% increase in visitors in the last 18 months.
TradingView CEO and co-founder Denis Globa highlighted Tiger Global’s expertise in fintech, adding that the partnership would contribute to informed financial trading.
Established in 2011, the platform enables over 30 million monthly users in 180 countries to access price charts of assets such as cryptocurrencies, stocks and futures.
“We built this company with the belief that people everywhere want the same thing: to be in control of their own economic futures,” Globa said, adding, “We work towards this by creating an environment where all traders and investors can look first, then leap.”
Related: Elliptic raises $60M to advance crypto analytics service
The company said that TradingView aims to bolster its broker relationships with partnerships and integrations with major brokerage firms in a bid to enable visitors to trade directly from the platform.
Tiger Global’s Alex Cook said that TradingView’s global standing among retail investors positions the company “to be the default social network and financial analysis platform used by all traders and investors.”
A known investor in crypto, Tiger Global recently led another mega-funding round. Together with Coatue Management, the venture capital has invested $400 million into the crypto payments startup MoonPay.
Valued at $4.3B, NFT platform Sorare to invest in women’s sports
Following a $680 million funding round, nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace Sorare is looking to be an active player in bridging the gap between sports and digital entertainment.
Now valued at $4.3 billion, Sorare told Cointelegraph that the company plans to use the fresh capital to expand its business with new hires and partnerships, as well as support community-led programs.
Besides working with community-led football programs aimed at helping young people from disadvantaged backgrounds and backing underprivileged entrepreneurs in sports and gaming, Sorare CEO Nicolas Julia explained via email that the NFT unicorn would also support female representation in sports. He said:
“We believe that NFTs can significantly accelerate the development of women’s sports. We will actively invest in this by beginning with women’s football.”
Sorare, a Paris-based NFT marketplace focused on sports, made headlines in September following a SoftBank-led $680 million Series B funding.
Julia further detailed how Sorare would use the raised capital for business purposes, starting with the new hires to expand the team. “We’re looking to fill many new roles,” he said, both in Europe and the United States.
He added that new partnerships would introduce new football leagues and national teams to the NFT marketplace. Such partnerships require an upfront payment, and Sorare is loaded enough to sign the deal with the top 20 leagues and top 50 national teams, thanks to the hefty funding.
Related: Sports-themed NFTs spark gold rush as projects raise $930M in a week
Sorare also plans to reserve some part of the funds for mobile and marketing efforts. “Our fantasy game will be a mobile-first experience,” Julia explained, adding that the company’s growth was organic till now.
The last topic on Sorare’s agenda is to bring new sports to the platform. “We’ve received interest from leagues and fans across the globe to replicate our model in other sports,” Julia said.
Crypto tax startup TaxBit reportedly in talks for unicorn-level funding
The United States-based cryptocurrency tax software developer TaxBit is reportedly looking for new funding at a valuation of $1 billion or more, which would make it a unicorn startup.
According to Bloomberg, people with knowledge of the matter said TaxBit is in talks to raise capital, but the terms have yet to be finalized. TaxBit declined to comment on the reports.
TaxBit is a Salt Lake City, Utah-based startup founded in 2018 specializing in crypto-related tax processes for consumers and businesses. Developed by a group of CPAs, tax attorneys and software developers, the solution enables users to track the tax impact on their trades on crypto exchanges.
Earlier this year, TaxBit raised $100 million in a Series A round to bolster its expansion into Europe. Paradigm and Tiger Capital led the funding round while other participants included PayPal’s venture arm, Coinbase, Winklevoss Capital, hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman, Qualtrics’ Ryan Smith and Anthony Pompliano.
Related: US crypto firms invest in tax solutions as IRS updates reporting forms
According to the same report, TaxBit said that the Internal Revenue Service selected TaxBit to provide crypto-related data analysis and tax calculation support for taxpayers following Series A funding.
Marking it as a milestone for the crypto industry, Woodward then said that IRS’ decision indicates regulators are embracing the asset class, “but doing so in a way that ensures a straightforward approach to conform with existing regulations.”
“The United States Internal Revenue Service classifies crypto as property, meaning you can trigger taxes every time you use crypto to buy something,” explains Cointelegraph contributor and tax lawyer Robert W. Wood.
NFT Trading Platform Giant OpenSea Raises $100 M in Series B Funding, Becoming Next Crypto Unicorn
The well-known NFT trading platform giant OpenSea announced the completion of a $100 million Series B financing and officially joined the crypto unicorn track.
Reportedly, the financing was led by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). Other investors include hedge funds and private equity firm Coatue, former Disney president Michael Ovitz, Co-Founder and Chairman of Eventbrite Kevin Hartz, CEO & Co-founder of Figma Dylan Field, famous NBA star Kevin Durant, American actor Ashton Kutcher, and the founder and CEO of Shopify Tobi Lutke.
The financing did not disclose the specific purpose of use. However, the company stated that its direct mission is to provide the best market for the creation and establishment of NFTs and to help establish systems and standards that can transform all types of digital wealth into a truly possessive and freely exchangeable form, stating that:
“OpenSea’s broader mission is to turn the internet from an information transfer machine into a value transfer machine.”
According to a Forbes report, the funds raised this time will be used to develop the team and establish multi-chain support and provide customers with a smoother experience.
The OpeaSea team said that in the announcement:
“we’re officially announcing cross-blockchain support, starting with a gas-free marketplace on the Polygon blockchain. Buyers no longer have to pay blockchain fees when making trades on OpenSea, and creators can fully earn their way into crypto for the first time.”
The B round of financing is the largest financing. The peer-to-peer (P2P) marketplace for crypto collectables and non-fungible tokens (NFT) OpeaSea is valued at about $1.5 billion, becoming the latest crypto unicorn-referring to the establishment of fewer than 10 years valuation of $1 billion technology startups that are not listed on the stock market.
The well-known cryptocurrency mining giant Bitmain in the United States and the recently completed $900M round of financing of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, etc., are currently well-known cryptocurrency unicorn companies.
This is not the first time Andreessen Horowitz has invested in OpenSea. On March 18, OpenSea, a notable digital marketplace for crypto collectables, completed an investment led by a16z with a total value of $23 Million.
So far, OpenSea has raised $127.2M in funding over 5 rounds, including this round of financing.
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